The North Carolina GOP released an ad attacking Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

(CNN) - The North Carolina GOP unveiled a 30-second television spot Wednesday that attacks Democratic gubernatorial candidates Beverly Perdue and Richard Moore for backing Barack Obama – the latest in a string of new ad campaigns that look to tie local Democrats to the Illinois senator.

The new ad points to "controversial figures from Barack Obama's past" and suggests that Perdue and Moore’s decision to endorse the Illinois senator raises questions about their judgment.

The Republican National Committee and presumptive GOP nominee John McCain have both asked the North Carolina state party not to run the ad.

The National Republican Congressional Committee is using Obama in another ad aimed at state Rep. Don Cazayoux, who is running for Congress. The spot ties Cazayoux to Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the issue of taxes. "Cazayoux also supports Obama's radical agenda on health care. If Don ‘Tax You’ gets to Washington, he'll do what they tell him to do," says the announcer.

(CNN)– Barack Obama's concession speech Tuesday launched a primary night mystery that is still mystifying puzzled viewers: just who were those three guys in Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirts standing behind him as he spoke - and what, exactly, were they doing there?

The speculation began long before the Illinois senator's speech ended: were they plants? pranksters? or was the explanation really as simple as: just three guys who really like A&F T-shirts?

Be sure to tune in to the 6 p.m. hour of The Situation Room, when CNN's Jeannie Moos explores this controversy over casual wear.

Watch a North Carolina superdelegate explain some of the factors he is considering in deciding between Clinton and Obama.

(CNN) – Even though less than ten Democratic primary contests remain, 308 superdelegates have yet to reveal which of the party’s two remaining major presidential candidates they intend to support. David Parker of North Carolina is one such superdelegate.

“I have changed my mind several times just like the American public seems to be moving around,” Parker told CNN’s John Roberts on American Morning.

Polling results of head-to-head match-ups between Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will be a factor in Parker’s decision.

“I’m also looking at the impact down-ballot in North Carolina,” Parker said Wednesday. “And, across the South were I think Democrats need to come back."

Although Parker confessed to feeling pressure to make a decision, he also told Roberts that the long Democratic nomination fight is likely good for his party’s eventual nominee – especially if the nominee is Obama.

“Doing a little sparring with Hillary Clinton - who is an incredibly tough competitor and may, in fact, knock him out - is good training for him in the fall,” said Parker. “John McCain is not going to pull any punches and those gloves are going to come off quickly."

CNN=Politics Daily is The Best Political Podcast from the Best Political Team.

(CNN) – After six weeks of a hard-fought campaign, the voters in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary have spoken.

In the latest episode of CNN=Politics Daily, the Best Political Team in News wraps up the Tuesday’s battle between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Suzanne Malveaux is on the campaign trail in Indiana with the Obama campaign. She explains what’s next for the Illinois senator after his loss to Clinton.

John Roberts speaks with Clinton, who shares her best argument to the Democratic Party’s undecided supderdelegates for choosing her as the nominee now that she’s won in Pennsylvania.

Finally, Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider takes a close look inside Clinton’s victory. Who did white men vote for? Who did late deciders pick? Who won over Pennsylvania’s newly registered Democrats? What were the top three issues for Pennsylvania Democrats? Schneider has all the answers to these questions, and explains what Pennsylvania exit polling data suggests about the Democratic rivals’ prospects in the remaining primaries.

(CNN) - Fresh off her victory in Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton is facing a stinging rebuke of her campaign tactics from her hometown paper, The New York Times.

In the paper's Wednesday edition, the editorial board which endorsed Clinton's White House bid earlier this year says the New York senator's "negativity" is doing "harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election."

"The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it," the board writes.

The paper finds fault in Clinton's latest campaign ad, which includes an image of Osama bin Laden, and asks, "Who do you think has what it takes?"

"Mrs Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11," they write, adding that it is a tactic that is "torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook."

But ask former Democratic Texas congressman Charlie Wilson about transparency, and he chuckles.

"You can't do everything transparently," Wilson told CNN in a phone interview, and he should know: his determination to fund Afghan rebels against the Soviet invasion was made into the book and movie "Charlie Wilson's War." (The DVD of the film, which starred Tom Hanks as Wilson, comes out Tuesday.) Wilson's effort was covert: He set about increasing funding for CIA operations in Afghanistan, helped convince disparate groups such as the Israelis and Saudis to cooperate, and did it all with almost no coverage in the press.

"This was opaque and it had to be opaque, and had it not been, it wouldn't have succeeded," he continues. "But to be opaque, it had to have bipartisan support. It had to have enthusiastic bipartisan support - but bipartisan support that didn't go to the press, and try to take credit."

A few months ago, the only people who talked about the possibility of a contested Democratic nomination fight extending all the way to the party's convention in August were hopeful pundits, desperate Republicans, and Chicken Little Democrats.

Most of the rational world looked at the political landscape and foresaw a smooth ride to victory for Democrats. They had, after all, the wind at their backs from the 2006 midterm elections, and a Republican President with record-high disapproval ratings thanks to an unpopular war and a tanking economy. The dueling landmark candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seemed an embarrassment of riches, fueling record-breaking fundraising and bringing a flood of new voters to the party.